


Family Traditions, the Old and the New

by Miss_M



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crack, Drunkenness, F/M, Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-06
Updated: 2014-03-06
Packaged: 2018-01-14 18:59:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1277368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_M/pseuds/Miss_M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cersei is an oversharing drunk. Brienne experiences this firsthand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family Traditions, the Old and the New

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lady_in_Red](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_in_Red/gifts).



> Awkward Family Gathering crack with a baseline of slight canon-appropriate angst. The result of my preferring to write rather than fret before traveling. Lady_in_Red started the ball rolling on this, and it quickly became fic material. I own nothing.

Cersei Lannister was drunk.

She’d been tipsy already when Jaime and Brienne arrived at Kevan and Dorna Lannister’s home for the annual Lannister family get-together before the New Year. Brienne hadn’t kept count of how many drinks Cersei had had in the interim, but she’d seen Cersei hold an empty wine bottle upended over her glass and stare at it in intent anticipation of one last drop draining out. That had been an hour ago. Cersei’s cheeks were now lightly flushed, and her speech would have been slurred but for the degree of enthusiasm with which she regaled Brienne with a tidbit from her past. 

Her and Jaime’s past, to be exact.

“It was the only way I could manage.” The drunk woman leaned very close to Brienne, absorbed in the confidence or maybe just having trouble with balance. “I carried it everywhere with me. A true godssend, that bullet.” 

Brienne held her breath as Cersei giggled aromatically. “Bullet, that’s funny,” Cersei tittered. “It certainly hit the spot every time.”

Brienne wanted desperately to get up and run all the way back to her and Jaime’s apartment, but she was too polite to do that, even when her husband’s twin sister, former lover, mother of his children, and the Lannister most likely to corner you and talk your ear off while drunk told Brienne all about the mini vibrator she’d started carrying in her purse when Jaime’d gone away for a year. The trip during which he’d lost his hand and met Brienne. Neither woman mentioned those details. 

Brienne couldn’t stop thinking about a different detail. “In your purse?” she asked, incredulous, knowing she’d regret this. “Isn’t that… terribly unhygienic?” 

The look Cersei swiveled her way was a wobbly version of the drunken beauty’s usual scornful sneer. “I kept tissues in there,” Cersei said, like Brienne was the biggest idiot to have ever walked the Seven Kingdoms. 

Brienne hid her disgusted grimace in her glass, reminding herself that a woman who failed to practice contraception while carrying on a years-long incestuous relationship wasn’t likely to balk at a little… stickiness in her purse. Despite her best efforts, Brienne’s face blazed bright red. 

Cersei seemed oblivious as she took a swig from her glass and continued, an edge of bitterness creeping swiftly into her voice. “I don’t suppose you even know what a vibrator’s for.” 

Brienne opened her mouth foolishly, all set to retort that she had fingers. Cersei never paused in her litany. 

“You probably never came once until you met,” she hiccupped, “my brother. And now you don’t need any help with that. I never needed to carry my own when Jaime was around. But none of those others knew the first thing about how to handle a woman.” 

She’d gone from bitter to maudlin in the space of two sentences, and could swing back at any moment. Brienne spied movement through the dining-room door, stood so abruptly she jostled Cersei’s arm. Fortunately Cersei’s glass was empty. Cersei peered into it accusingly. 

“Dorna!” Brienne exclaimed so loudly several people turned to look at her. She smiled in apology, blushing. “Do you need any help with the cake?”

“Oh, it’s all right, Brienne dear, I can manage.” Dorna caught a glimpse of Cersei behind Brienne. “Unless you really want to help, of course…”

Much later, Brienne was starting to believe the evening might end well, her belly full of delicious food, Dorna Lannister’s simplest cake recipe secreted in the pocket of Brienne’s slacks, and Jaime’s arm slung low around her waist as they said their goodnights and walked to their car.

“I think we can officially call you a Lannister now,” Jaime said as Brienne fished out their car keys, wrapping both arms around her from behind. His breath was very warm on the inch of bare skin on the back of Brienne’s neck, between her scarf and her hat. 

Brienne enjoyed the shiver it sent down her spine, confident Jaime hadn’t had so much to drink as not to be able to make it up to her for braving yet another family gathering with him, even though Brienne always insisted he didn’t need to make anything up to her. She had grown to like several Lannisters other than Jaime: Dorna and Kevan and their children were lovely, as were Myrcella and Tommen, and Tyrion could be quite nice when he wasn’t racing his sister to the next drink.

But Jaime’s father liked to combine family occasions with one-on-one chats with his children, who usually needed several drinks afterward even if they’d arrived to the party sober. Brienne had confiscated the car keys from Jaime upon arrival at Kevan and Dorna’s, and stuck to sodas and half a glass of watered wine over dinner. 

“Oh?” she asked, unlocking the passenger door for Jaime, and went around to the driver’s side. “Did I endure a magic number of Lannister family dinners?”

“No, you got cornered by Cersei when she’s in an oversharing mood.”

Brienne met Jaime’s eyes over the roof of their car. “And that makes me an honorary Lannister?”

Jaime grinned. It was a strained grin. Brienne wanted to wait and see how long it would take him to ask her, but she couldn’t stand to watch Jaime squirm. At the first red light, she told him what Cersei had talked about. 

Jaime stared out of the window, unmoving, for a full minute after she was done. Finally he took a deep breath.

“I think,” he said slowly. “I think next time we’re invited to one of these shindigs, you’ll come down with food poisoning, and I’ll have to nurse you.”

Brienne would have rolled her eyes, but it was snowing and the roads hadn’t been plowed yet. “Why me?”

“It’s your independent, adventurous spirit, Brienne. It’s always getting you into trouble. You discover these exotic hole-in-the-wall restaurants and get all excited about them, and then you suffer for it. Raw sea urchins. Ripe durian fruit salad. Dog steak…”

“Please stop. Your aunt made a lovely meal, Jaime.” 

“Hog’s head stew. Snails. Sparrows’ tongues on toast…”

“Your father’s birthday is next month. Why don’t we go on vacation then? Pod told me the skiing season at the Eyrie is a bust this year, we could get a good price on a room.”

“I was quite the dashing skier back in the day, I’ll have you know.”

Brienne snorted. “Of course you were.” She didn’t doubt it, but she had developed a taste for teasing Jaime occasionally. “Might be tricky, though,” she nodded at his hand and stump.

Jaime contemplated his missing hand with hard-won equanimity, smiled. “Snowboarding,” he said with relish, a solution to a profound philosophical problem. 

“You’re too old for snowboarding.” 

Jaime gasped. “I want a divorce.” 

They were approaching a yellow light and there were no other cars on the road, so Brienne allowed herself to look at him as she slowed down. “No, you don’t,” she said fondly. “I’m the only person who always tells you the truth. You couldn’t manage without me.” 

“And you’d have to resort to carrying a vibrator around in your jacket pocket without me, since you don’t have a purse.”

Brienne huffed, looked back at the road. They knew each other too well for her to get annoyed or angry at that. 

“I suspect I’m too old for snowboarding too,” she offered conciliatorily. 

“You’d pass up the opportunity to watch me, wind in my hair, king of the mountain slopes?” Jaime teased, a placating gesture of his own. 

“I’d pass up the opportunity to watch you break your neck. If your family hears we went snowboarding, Tommen will want to do it too. We’ll never hear the end of it from Cersei even when she’s sober.”

“No prizes for guessing what my father would say,” Jaime said dryly. 

Brienne decided then and there to start kissing him and take him to bed as soon as they got through their front door, otherwise Jaime would sleep badly and spend all next day brooding. 

“Yes,” she said, dropping her voice, only half feigning amusement. “Lannisters don’t…”

“… act like fools!” they finished in unison. Jaime’s pitch-perfect impersonation of Tywin Lannister’s clipped tones overshadowed Brienne’s rumbling imitation of a man’s voice. 

Jaime laughed louder and longer than Brienne. She liked hearing him laugh, even when it sounded forced. The light changed, and Brienne upshifted, reminding herself sternly that it would be dangerous to drive faster on unplowed roads just so she could get them home more quickly. They’d get there soon enough.


End file.
